Shelly Duval in The Shining.
Very possibly the only mistake in Stanley Kubrick’s career, until Eyes Wide Shut.
Call me crazy, but I think RuPaul could have brought off Storm in the X-Men movies. But the moviegoing public probably wouldn’t have accepted him in the role.
Given that, I think Angela Bassett would have been terrific. Much better than Halle Berry. She would’ve cost a lot less, too.
While I’ll agree that there were some, uh, issues with Shelley Duvall’s performance in The Shining, I’m not convinced it was a clear case of mis-casting.
On the other hand, Tim Carey in the role of Pvt. Ferol in Paths of Glory just seems bizarre to me. Why did Kubrick think that this '50s beatnik type would be a good choice to play the role of a condemned WWI soldier? It’s not like Kubrick didn’t know what he’d be getting by casting Carey. Kubrick had used him before in The Killing (and Carey was a reasonably good fit for that role).
Grace Jones would have been perfect physically, if she weren’t such an incredibly bad actress.
Molly Ringwald as Frannie Goldsmith in The Stand. That’s just…wrong. But they got so many other characters like Tom, Stu and Glen so totally right that I forgave them.
And the actress cast as Beverly in It was also a million miles off the mark. First of all there was the whole matter of the fact that Beverly had red hair, and the actress had flat mousy brown hair, yet mysteriously still received the haiku from Ben about her hair “like winter fire”. And Bill Denbrough, who in the book was bald, but in the movie had a sensitive new-agey ponytail?!
I didn’t like Clint Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County but that could just be my personal opinion.
Wilford Brimley in The Firm , sorry but to me, he’ll always be the oatmeal guy. “The right thing to do and a tasty way to do it.”
Sharon Stone in The Quick and The Dead, she was just so bad in it, spent the whole movie trying to growl and staring down.
Julia Roberts Ocean’s Eleven , I just couldn’t buy her in this role.
John Travolta The General’s Daughter He just didn’t fit what was described, and he jaw clenching through the whole movie was getting to me, not to mention that crappy accent at the beginning, he’s better than that!
wow… you either triple posted (not easy to do) or youre really passionate about Hugh Jackman. I will agree that its pretty hard to cast a superhero especially if the director had never seen a comic book before. If you look at the X-men lineup you’ll find that Storm is the tallest (except when Piotr is in metal mode) followed by Cyclops then Jean and Wolverine would be in the runty end. He weighs about 300 some odd pounds tho due to the adamantium. He’s hardy taller than kitty pride when she was young.
The acting was almost right. needed to be more brooding and much more feral. Wolverine wasnt the sensitive type until way much later. Wolverine wasnt not the type of person who would let a cop get the drop on him or let 6 feet of space stop him from “disarming” anyone with a gun. Professor X was perfectly cast with Patrick Stewart and I liked Tobey as Spider-man. Howie Long wouldve been perfect for Batman, all the super villains were the all star roles anyway.
well, back to the OP:
How about Ving Rhames as the Kingpin? My sincerest apologies to the black community but the Kingpin is white. As much as I do not like white people dressing up as asian lead characters, I really dont like switching races for the movie roles.
Actually, that was not Ving Rhames in Daredevil, that was Michael Clarke Duncan as Kingpin.
Me neither. I just kept thinking “He’s going to all this trouble to get her back. Color me 
”
A lot of comments in this thread deal with preconceived notions of characters. Your main problem with the casting of X-Men seems to be that the height of many of the characters doesn’t match the comic book. I have never read (or seen) the comic book versions but have watched the movie a few times. I have never noticed anything in the movie that indicates they were out of character. The question is since Wolverine was an established character prior to the movie, is it a miscast if the actor isn’t true to the character type.
This of course brings up a massive dilemma, on the one hand you could argue than any deviation from the source media (be it book, drawing, or previous movie) is, by definition, a miscast. On the other hand you could argue that even the casting mentioned in the OP was fine: “In The Conqueror Genghis Kahn was meant to be a Texas-Cowboy-With-A-Drawl type of portrayal.”
I for one thought that Hugh Jackman did an excellent job in X-Men. I also would maintain that John Wayne was the wrong guy to play Genghis Kahn (Cecil thinks so too)
It’s all subjective anyway.
I don’t think this one has been mentioned yet, but how ‘bout 22-year-old Nicole Kidman as a frickin’ brain surgeon in ‘Days of Thunder?’
Malcolm McDowell, Peter O’Toole, and John Gielgud in Caligula? What a blemish on their bodies of work.
You’re joking right? Howie Long would have been perfect as one of the statues in Gotham. That’s about it.
Aaron Eckhardt in Possession.
A guy names Roland is an American? Aaron Eckhardt is a PhD candidate in Romance Poetry? This one was right up there with Ms. Richards the nuclear scientist - but at least we all knew the plot of a Bond movie sucks and the girls are eye candy. If Neil LaBute could have gotten over using Eckhardt in a single damn picture, this movie MIGHT have held a candle to the book. He was fun to look at though.
I’ll try and add some ones that haven’t been mentioned yet. FTR, my vote is a toss-up between Wayne as Genghis Kahn or Rooney’s offensive, embarrassing “Asian” comedy routine.
• Michelle Pfeiffer in Dangerous Minds.
• Winona Ryder in Alien: Resurrection.
• Will Smith in The Legend of Bagger Vance.
• Mark Wahlberg in everything except Boogie Nights.
I was disappointed when Richard Chamberlain was cast as Blackthorne in the TV miniseries of Shogun. As I read the book, I visualized Robert Shaw in the role. In the alternative, Michael Caine would have been excellent, too. But the effete Mr. Chamberlain ruined it for me.
I thought whoever played Nightcrawler in X2 was a bad choice, and not just for Nightcrawler, but for ANY superhero.
Why??
He has a weak chin!!!
Superheroes do not have weak chins. It goes without saying!! Nightcrawler could have been sexy and strong to go along with his dignified air, instead of coming off meek, which is what that actor accomplished. Yet another good character ruined by a bad chin!!
About the on superhero I could see Howie Long playing would be Wonder Man. If they wrote character like during his struggling actor/stunt man days in The Avengers, since Wonder Man never seemed very bright.
He is often miscast but I really liked him in *Three Kings[/]. Can’t quite figure out why - He plays a good “confused.”
I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before, but the recent Disney version of The Music Man missed the mark in several places, the most glaring being the casting of Matthew Broderick as Harold Hill. I know he is old enough for the part, but he looks like a little boy of the time wearing re-buckled Knickerbockers. He was completely unbelievable as the worldly-wise roue. He would have been better cast as Tommy Gelis (sp?). Harold had already been done to perfection by Robert Preston. The Disney remake (like most remakes) was a waste of film.